


Winging It

by forgotten_Alias



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Chocobo Races, Dealing With Loss, Emotional Baggage, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Post-Canon, Recovery, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, new start, ranch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25607197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgotten_Alias/pseuds/forgotten_Alias
Summary: Sometimes it takes a bottle of really bad hooch to make you realise that things just aren't working the way they are right now and that maybe its time to pack up everything and try something new.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife, Zack Fair/Cloud Strife
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26





	1. Of These Chains

_'Caution, contents may be.... is that... flammable? And we put this in our bodies?'_

Cloud turned the bottle over it his hand, squinting at the faded label as he smoothed his thumb over the warning, trying to clear some of the grime away so that he might confirm whether or not he was correct about what it said, but it was pretty firmly caked on there. This was one of Tifa's special 'Top Shelf' bottles, one of the ones she'd salvaged up from the ruins of Midgar and tucked away for special occasions. Apparently it was five years today since he defeated Sephiroth (the first time anyway) and that was an occasion Tifa deemed worth celebrating. She'd tried to convince the others to all get together at her bar in Edge for the occasion, but she'd received all around apologies. They had their own lives now, it seemed everyone was just too busy to set aside a day for something like that.

“Not to your liking? I can pull something else down?” 

Her voice tugged him out of his thoughts and he looked up to meet her gaze across the bar. She leaned there regarding him, head tilted slightly so that the silver drop that hung from her earlobe swung gently. 

"No this is fine, but are you sure you really want to drink this now? When it's just us?"

He set the bottle back down between them as she turned to fetch two glasses from behind her, flipping them over in her hands in juggling motions before she set them down on the bar and grabbed the bottle, popping the cork with a skilled flick of her thumb. It burst with a loud pop, bouncing across the empty bar floor to clatter into the corner somewhere unseen.

"What better opportunity are we going to get?" she replied. "I keep saving them thinking we might have some special reason for them, but nothing has come up, and we seem to see the others less and less these days. It's a waste to just leave them up there." She gestured idly behind her to the shelves where she kept all of her liquor. Most of the bottles were well used and in various stages of being emptied, newer vintages being brewed in people's basements or backyards that she bought from locals for the most part. Only the very top shelf was covered in old untouched bottles, all of them dirty, dusty with labels that could barely be read for the dirt, grime and scorch marks that marred them.

Cloud peered closely at her, noting quietly the changes that the years had brought to the dark haired woman. Neither of them were old by any stretch of the imagination, not even nearing their thirties yet, but Tifa had new lines on her face beside her eyes, and her dark locks bore the tell-tale signs of strands of silver, though so few only someone like him would notice. They were small things, but he noticed more of them every year, it was unsettling to him. Times were just hard, and it showed on them all. She deserved something to celebrate, and maybe the others couldn't make the time, but he was there.  
"All right, to five years then," he mused, pushing the glass she'd placed on the bar for him towards her.

Her face brightened as he'd hoped, and she picked up the bottle, pouring a helping into both of their glasses. The liquid was a dark brown in colour, and smelled quite strongly of alcohol - though more like the kind Cloud used for cleaning elements on his bike than anything they should be drinking - Tifa noted. As one they lifted their glasses and tapped them together, downing the liquid in a quick gulp. 

Cloud paused for a moment, savouring the flavour as it burned down his throat. It was definitely strong, had a distinctly woody note to it and...  
"It's terrible..." Tifa moaned, screwing up her face as she stared into her empty glass, red eyes looking as if she were offended by what she had just assaulted her taste buds with.

Cloud chuckled softly, setting his glass down as he nodded. "It wasn't great..."

The woman sighed, sagging onto the bar and resting her chin in her hand. "Is this all it is now Cloud? You and me, just drinking bad alcohol alone and grinding away at our nine to fives?" 

Mako eyes blinked in surprise, not sure where this had suddenly come from, Tifa had never expressed any dissatisfaction before. "You don't like running Seventh Heaven?" he queried, leaning forward on his stool, fixing her with that intense gaze. 

"Well, running a bar is fine, I do enjoy it..." she began, straightening from the bar and retrieving the rag that she used to polish the wooden surface. Cloud watched as she cleaned away their glasses and put the bottle of disgusting brown alcohol aside so that she could wipe down the bar-top. The lacquer of the wooden bench was patchy in places, he could see where it remained thick and glossy thanks to the lights overhead, but there were places where it was worn almost down to the bare wood, and he watched as Tifa brought her rag right to one of these conspicuous spots and began to rub it in idle circles. 

"But...?" he urged. He'd learned from years of both successful and unsuccessful observation that what Tifa said and what she meant were sometimes very different things when she was feeling insecure, he wasn't sure why exactly why she still felt she couldn't just tell him the truth, but he was steadily getting better at picking up from her body language when she wasn't giving him the whole story with her words. Sure, he still couldn't just guess her real meaning for himself, but it at least meant he was able to work out when he should press her for more information now.

"Well, do you ever get bored of your deliveries? Do you ever wish you were doing something else? Not running back and forth across the continents taking things hither and thither for other people all the time, maybe doing something for yourself instead?" She paused in her polishing, giving the poor tortured lacquer a well needed reprieve, instead torturing the rag itself with her nervous energy, twisting it back and forth in her grasp.

Cloud fell silent, gaze dropping to his hands as he mulled over his response. Was he bored with his delivery service? He got to get out and see the world, see how things were slowly changing and recovering as Gaia healed, he got to see friends all over the world, never had to stay in one place for very long...

"Yeah... I get it," he replied, nodding his head quickly. "I love traveling, but sometimes I just want to have somewhere that's mine to stop and stay. Like... a little piece of the world that's just all mine to care for." He felt heat rising in his neck as soon as he finished talking, blood rushing into his face. "That's silly right?"

When he looked back up, Tifa was staring at him, her mouth slightly ajar, blinking slowly. He could see the way her eyes shimmered... they only did that when she was trying not to get too emotional. "You still don't feel like this is a home for you?"

He hurriedly shook his head. "No no, not like that Tifa!" he frowned, frustrated that his attempt to explain himself had not come out correctly. "But... well, Edge isn't ours right? It's just something we helped people throw together after Midgar, like a rushed job?"

Sure, they'd trawled through piles of scrap for days on end until their hands bled, pulling whatever of use they could find out of the ruins of Midgar and hauling it out to the site of the new settlement to help the survivors of Meteor to construct this new city out under the blue Gaia sky, but in the end Edge was still cobbled together from the detritus of a corpse from their past, one with a few too many memories.

She was silent for just long enough to make him uncomfortable, but then finally she nodded her head, a small smile coming to her lips. "All right, I think I understand what you mean," she agreed. "Then what do we do?"

Cloud smiled despite himself, a familiar but still alien flutter in his chest rising when Tifa used the word 'we'. She never set him to a task alone, always counting herself in on anything he set out to do; it was nice to still have one team mate left even after all this time.

The gentle ringing of the front door bell filled the silence that followed her question as someone opened the bar's front door, a small child's head peaking in. "Paper!" they barked, reaching in one arm to lob the rolled up newspaper towards the two of them at the bar. Tifa called out her thanks as Cloud caught the rolled up object, flattening it out on the counter-top in front of him. 

"Reeve is on the front page again..." he drawled with a smirk, holding the paper up to Tifa so she could see their friend's face peering up from the black and white page, still looking well kept with his well groomed beard and pressed suit. "Apparently he and the W.R.O are begging more people to purchase holdings and start farming... they think it will help the re-genesis efforts..." his blue eyes flicked back and forth lazily across the page, only half reading the article, much of the information was not new to him, kept well in the loop by the man in question himself whenever he happened to drop by for a visit.

"I guess most people here in Edge never really thought of themselves as farmers," Tifa mused as she turned from the bar to put away the cloth she'd been worrying in her hands for quite some time now. "Too long in Midgar."

Cloud dropped the paper down on to the bench with a slap, frowning at the back of Tifa's head. "Do you think I could be a farmer?"  
"I think you could do just about anything you set your mind to Cloud," she responded, looking over her shoulder at him with a warm smile. "Nothing has ever stopped you before right?"

He looked back down at the paper, staring at Reeve's serious expression thoughtfully. Cloud Strife... Former Shinra Infantryman, ex-mercenary, defeater of Sephiroth, Saviour of Gaia, Delivery Boy, Ranch Owner...

"I guess... I do rather like..." he trailed off, letting his words disappear into a shy murmur, the colour in his cheeks only deepening as he realised what exactly he had been about to confess too. The damage was done though, because his companion turned back to face him, her hands rising to rest on her hips.

"What have we discussed about you mumbling like that, Cloud?" she scolded playfully. "I always find out what you were going to say anyway, so it's easier if you just speak up to begin with, right?"

Shaking his head slowly, but chuckling all the same Cloud ventured the comment again, only louder this time. "I guess I kind of always wondered what it would be like to raise Chocobos, for racing you know?"

A surprised light filled Tifa's eyes at that, and she clapped her hands in front of herself several times quickly, the ring on her finger jingling away as it so often did, the only reminder of its quiet presence there on her finger, a quiet promise they'd both made but neither really fully understood. "Ooooh Chocobos? That would be so nice, just a little farm, with space to breathe and run..." she sighed wistfully.

Cloud frowned, tilting his head slightly. "You'd like that?"

"Of course I would!" She rocked her weight all on to one leg, her hips swayed sideways as she pointed teasingly at him with a lone finger. "We've lived in the city for so long now I've almost forgotten what fresh air smells like, and to see green growing things..."

His gaze was drawn sidelong down the bar at that, to where a small vase sat by the tiny window of Tifa's kitchenette, a little white flower stretched desperately for what little sunlight it could get through the foggy glass, its wilting petals sad and yet somehow still beautiful in comparison to the dreary grays of the industrial interior. He'd only brought it back for her two days ago, but they never lasted very long... nothing of real beauty lasted very long here in Edge. He stared at the bloom, Tifa's voice fading into the background as she continued to outline all the things that would be good about living out in the country.

"And Denzel would love it too I'm sure, he could use the space to grow...."

As he watched, a petal fell from the flower, drifting slowly to the floor, where it came to rest in the shadows, lost from the light. He looked back to Tifa, and the wistful glow in her eyes...

"Let's do it," he declared, cutting her off mid-sentence, his hand already in his pocket to withdraw his cell phone, flicking through the list of familiar but oft neglected numbers.

She gasped softly, "really?"

"Really, make the arrangements. I'm going to call Reeve."


	2. Where No One Goes

Cloud lifted the box up into the back of his delivery truck, careful not to drop it too heavily and risk breaking the bottles inside. Though she was leaving most of her collection with Seventh Heaven, Tifa had insisted that her top shelf collection had to come with them. It was what had sparked this insane idea after all, so it was only fair that it came with them on their new adventure, in case it sparked any more wonderful ideas.

_'Wonderful, or completely insane?'_ He wondered to himself as he wiped his hands on his breeches, regarding the heavily laden truck before him; their lives for the past five years somehow all packed down into a few boxes in the back of a single truck. _'Which do you reckon?'_ he asked, turning his eyes to the sky, clouds rolling silently overhead. _'Madness or progress?'_  
*He stood there staring for several breathless moments, as if he waited for someone to give him some sort of sign, before he let the sigh go and reached up to pull the back of the truck closed. Nothing, though he wasn't sure exactly what he'd been waiting for.

"Is that really everything?" Tifa called out to him from the back door to Seventh Heaven that lead to the upper floors that they'd called home for so many years. She turned the key in the lock and then passed it to the elderly man who stood patiently waiting, murmuring her thanks to him as she turned away and jogged to the waiting blond. "I can't believe we got it all done so fast. Is Denzel ready to go?"

Cloud gestured over his shoulder with a thumb towards the cab of the truck.  
"He's already buckled in and waiting."  
When they had told their young ward about their plans to leave Edge for the country and start their own ranch he'd gone very quiet for several days, and they'd worried that maybe he didn't like the idea. Ever the nervous guardians they'd given him plenty of space to think the situation over before approaching him about it again, but when Cloud finally knocked on Denzel's bedroom door they'd found he had already begun sorting and packing all of his belongings. He'd had mixed feelings at first, unsure if he wanted to leave so much familiarity behind, but then he'd decided that a fresh beginning would be good. Tifa had agreed with him.  
Cloud still had some apprehensions... he'd never been very good at letting go, he turned to look back at Seventh Heaven as if to assure himself just one last time that this was the right decision. It had seemed so easy when he made that phone call....  
A gentle hand on his arm shook him from his reverie, and it was Tifa's smile that brought that same certainty back with the same intensity it had first appeared.  
"Come on Cloud, let's go."

She led the way to the truck, leaping up into the passenger seat and getting herself settled. The ex-mercenary followed her lead on the driver's side, reaching over to give Denzel's hair a little ruffle as he buckled his seat belt. The teen swatted his hand away with a laugh as he did every time Cloud came at him with this particular gesture of acknowledgment.  
Slowly the truck pulled away from the curb, its engine rumbling away as they started down the crowded Edge streets. Familiar neighbours waved to them as they passed, pausing in their day's chores to acknowledge them in some manner or other. Several children a little younger than Denzel chased them quite some distance down the road, laughing and waving all the way, only stopping when it came time for their large truck to turn out onto a main road. The three of them were silent, watching their city drift by in a reminiscent reverie. For Tifa and Cloud it was the recollections of when they built each building, where the materials had been scrounged from, who had been given ownership of each home, who they had lost to the stigma and the endless debates held over long nights about what would power their lives now that the Mako Reactors were gone.  
For Denzel, these were the streets where he had grown up, made friends and enemies, and where he had built a new life with Cloud and Tifa. He barely remembered his life before in Midgar, so Edge was almost his everything, but it was time to move on and create new memories.  
"What are you going to name your first Chocobo, Cloud?" Denzel finally broke the silence.

The blond frowned slightly, hands clenching and unclenching the steering wheel a few times as he mulled the question over.  
"Well, I hadn't really thought about it yet," he confessed. "Do they need names?"

Denzel scoffed at him. "Of _course_ they need names, Cloud, everyone needs a name. Besides, if they're going to be racing Chocobos then they need really cool names, like... Duplicitous Daisy or Rigorous Ralph!"

Tifa giggled, weighing in on Denzel's name suggestions. "Do they have to all be alliterated like that?"

"Have you ever read the Golden Saucer section of the paper, Tifa?" Denzel retorted flatly, giving her a bland look as he shook his head. "All of the racing Chocobos have names like that. If Cloud wants his chocobos to be taken seriously he'll have to name his the same way."

The quiet blond gave a small huff, turning their truck out of Edge and onto one of the large quiet highways that lead across the still depressingly barren wastes that surrounded it and the ruins of Midgar and out towards the greener parts of the continent near Kalm, from where they would then head south towards Junon to catch a barge across the ocean for the Western Continent. It was going to be a long trip, but Cloud was confident the location they'd picked out for their ranch would be worth it.  
"If I do name my chocobos, they will be named something heroic and strong, not something like all those amateurs in the paper."

Tifa and Denzel both grinned at him, he could see their smiles even out of the corner of his eye, the intensity of them making him blush a little.  
"He hasn't even got his first chocobo yet and he's already talking smack," the young boy joked, nudging Tifa with a conspiratorial elbow. "We might have to look out or he'll get too competitive!"

As Cloud sputtered indignantly Tifa just smiled, watching the two of them quietly as the barren scenery rolled by outside their windows. It was moments like this that made her feel like their past was a whole other life, like all of their struggles had happened to someone else. Seeing Cloud smile after everything he'd seen was what gave her the strength to smile on those days where she didn't feel like she could any more; it was why she stayed. That little curve on his lips made it all worth it, even if he did not realise the effect he had on her, even if it didn't seem like it would ever come to anything.  
"You should think of a name for the ranch too," she interjected, breaking the loop of 'are too, am not' that had started between the two of them. "But I guess we have to see what the land looks like before we can decide on that huh?"

"When we get there and start building we'll start thinking of names for the ranch," Cloud agreed. "Any earlier would be premature I think."

"Can I at least start thinking of ideas?" Denzel protested.

"All right, you can start thinking up ideas," Cloud agreed with an acquiescent chuckle, "but no alliteration!"

\---

It was coming up on sundown when Cloud finally reached that final turn off. It had been a long day, though thanks to the break in the middle while they took the barge across from Junon he wasn't overly tired. Tifa and Denzel dozed lightly beside him, the latter having been asleep for several hours, while Tifa had only gone silent recently, leaving Cloud alone with his thoughts. The roads weren't sealed out this way, so the truck rumbled over the gravel as he slowed at the intersection so that he could double check the sign post to ensure he had the right turn.  
The road to the left was signposted for Gongaga, while the sign to the left said 'New-river Road'. He glanced down at the text Reeve had sent him with the directions to the plot of land they'd been assigned.  
_'Look for the light beacon on New-River Road, near Gongaga.'_

This road had not been there when last Cloud had passed through this part of Gaia, there had only been the one dirt road that lead across the plains and into the forested region that surrounded the small town of Gongaga. The new road was hardly a road really, just a pair of grooves worn into the grass by repeated driving by a vehicle.  
"Seems right to me..." Cloud mused to himself, turning the truck onto the trail, wincing as he hit a bump and Tifa gave a soft grunt as she stirred. "We're almost there," he whispered over to her now that she was awake, keeping his voice down so that he wouldn't also wake Denzel, who slept on despite the disturbance.

Tifa sat up straighter, looking out her window at the darkening landscape around them. It was much greener, and dotted with trees that cast their long evening shadows across the rolling hills. The occasional hillside was dotted with rocky ground and she could see a twinkling in the distance that she suspected might be the twilight reflecting off the surface of a small river. "How will we know what land is ours?"

"If I'm correct..." Cloud began, reaching down blindly into the door-well to retrieve the file he'd been given, offering it over to Tifa so she could look, careful not to take his eyes off the road given how rough it was, "then this is all our land, but the W.R.O picked out a plot they thought would be ideal for the homestead and marked it with a beacon. We can pick somewhere else of course, but that's as good a place to start as any."

Tifa silently looked over the file, struggling to see all the details on the map without full light. She could see that Reeve had marked out the boundaries of their property for them in a red marker, and written all kinds of little notes for them in his impeccably neat handwriting, he was obviously enjoying being back in his original element, planning out developments. There was also a blue line on the map that started in the north somewhere but trailed down across their plot and headed south, it had obviously been added in after the original map had been made.  
"That looks like a lot of area," she mused, tracing the red line with a fingertip. "Are you sure we can handle so much space?"

"We'll work it out." He shrugged. They hit another bump, Cloud turning the truck off the marked trail slightly to avoid another large dip he saw in the road ahead, making a note to himself to work on the road as soon as their initial residence was set up; he wasn't going to have Tifa driving up and down such a bumpy road, and his bike certainly wouldn't like such poor grading. "The Chocobos need the space after all, and it means we've plenty of extra land if we decide to do anything else, like trying our hands at farming or something."  
He narrowed his eyes a little as he spied a little flashing amber light just ahead, sitting just by the side of the roadway as Reeve had said it would be.  
"There."

The dark haired woman looked up from the map, clasping her hands in front of herself as she leaned forward in her seat, her smile brightening as the beacon came fully into view. It was just a simple battery powered pylon with a flashing amber light on top, left there to mark the spot that the surveyors had picked out to be the best spot for them to build their homestead, but it was like a starting line, a lone light challenging them to set down upon its marked earth and create something beautiful.  
"This is so exciting..."

The truck rumbled to a stop as Cloud put on the breaks, stopping right beside the slowly pulsing light. He gave Denzel a nudge to wake him and then as one he and Tifa climbed out of the truck. His heavy boots crunched on the gravel road, an impossibly loud sound in the silence of such a wide open space. It was just him, Tifa, Denzel and their truck in the middle of nowhere with a slowly blinking light and the last golden motes of sunlight disappearing behind the horizon. He drew in a deep breath; the air was sweet and clean and alive in a way the air in Edge never was, like it snaked into parts of his lungs that had been long forgotten. He stretched upwards, feeling the tension of the long drive crackle all up his spine and release.

"So I guess we should set up a tent right, Cloud?" Denzel asked groggily as he finally dropped out of the cab of the truck, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Right, and we should get out all those lamps we packed too, we'll need the light," the former mercenary agreed, moving around to the back of the truck to open up the doors, careful to ensure nothing had shifted during the trip that might fall out and hurt him. The tent and lamps were right near the front where he could reach them easily, so he retrieved them and passed them to Tifa and Denzel who waited by his sides, and thanks to the chain they soon had everything they would need for the night out of the truck so he closed it up once more.

"It's a pity it's so dark already," Tifa mused as she began pulling the tent poles out of the bag, laying them out on the grass in neat rows so it was easier to tell which ones went where. "I'd have liked to have a look around at everything."

"We'll get a chance," he assured, gesturing Denzel over to help him unfold and lay out the canvas of the tent and then peg it to the ground. Thankfully the ground was soft enough that hammering in the iron spikes was not too difficult, but firm enough that they would hold enough if a wind should pick up over night. "It's not like there is any rush now right?"

Tifa looked up at him with a smile, clicking together two lengths of pole as she nodded. "Right, we've got plenty of time to learn our way around and find out the best places for everything in the morning."

"How about... Cloudy Heights?" Denzel chimed up, feeding one of Tifa's completed poles into its sleeve in the canvas of the tent.

"MINERVA no!" Tifa and Cloud exclaimed as one, the latter adding a soft expletive to his response as he shook out his hand, having struck his thumb with the mallet as he hammered the pegs in. "No name puns," he stated firmly.

"Awww..." The young boy pouted, but quickly followed the expression with a grin as he began standing the tent poles up, holding them in place while Tifa ran the wires that would keep them in place. "No alliteration, no puns... you're taking all of the fun out of this, Cloud."

Tifa laughed softly as she secured the guide line she was working on, pushing the peg into the ground with her foot. "Just remember that you'll have to live with whatever we choose forever too, Denzel," she mused, her voice almost singing the warning. "Don't pick anything you'll be embarrassed of later!"

Denzel poked his tongue out at her, turning back to the tent.  
"I still think a name pun would be awesome..."

Cloud just shook his head as he pulled the last line taught and secured it in place, standing back to admire their work. It wasn't much yet, just a lone tent on an empty plain, but it was a beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read my first two chapters!  
> I've been out of the fanfic game for a long time due to personal matters and have been very afraid to dive back in but you all made me feel a little braver. Please don't feel afraid to tell me what you think either here or over on my twitter :) I'd love to hear from you.


	3. A Life to Die For

Cloud woke to an unfamiliar sensation the following morning, the air inside the tent was already uncomfortably warm despite the sun not having yet fully risen. He sat up slowly, stretching as he looked around, Tifa and Denzel were still sleeping comfortably, the former breathing softly and the latter trailing a line of drool down his pillowcase. The blond scooted out of his sleeping bag and retrieved his boots, stepping out of the tent and into the field where they'd settled. A breeze tugged at his loose cotton nightshirt, bringing with it the soft scent of earth and hay, it was just cool enough to make his bare skin tingle but had a comforting warmth he'd not come to expect from any of the winds around Edge. He breathed deeply, letting those smells envelope him, memorising this new feeling of 'home'.

Then he followed his feet.

The earth was damp with dew, the golden grass brushing his knees and soaking into the thin fabric of his sleep-trousers, but it didn't bother him at all. The fields seemed to stretch out forever, golden-green and endless, a world removed from what came before, from gray streets and rotting ruins, from parched expanses of struggling wasteland... even from crumbling walls of sacred stone filled with too many memories that threatened to hang him like a noose. It was fresh here, it was new and empty and clean; a blank slate that was theirs to write a new history on without having to write in blood. He ran his hands along the top of the long grass, letting the tips tickle his palms and fingertips, feeling the shivers run up his arms into his shoulders and down his spine, reaching out into the nerves at the tips of his fingers, waking long dormant sensations from their atrophy.  
His pace began to pick up, his legs moving faster on their path through the slowly brightening field on their road to wherever. Soon he was running, feeling that warming breeze whipping through his hair and rolling over his shoulders as he made his way steadily up the rolling hill before him, climbing with the soft golden light that rolled overhead as the sun rose higher into the sky as dawn broke over the world. He chased it until the earth stopped, his feet only halting when the hill fell away into a ridge below him, the view that stretched out before him like a painting awash with golden light. He stood transfixed, breathing heavy from the run, mako-blues drinking it all in with a desperation he didn't know he'd had all these years. He reached forward with one hand, the sun seeming close enough to grasp in his fingers from here, the horizon close enough to touch, yet seeming to go on forever.  
"This is what you were looking for wasn't it?" he whispered, "this endless horizon... it makes it feel like you have wings."  
He closed his eyes as he turned his face into the breeze once more, extending his arms out to either side as he let that sweet breeze envelope him like the planet's embrace, lost himself in it. How he yearned to be a bird, to take flight and soar towards that horizon, to see what lay beyond the farthest reaches of the sunlight. Despite the bittersweet yearning inside he smiled to himself, this seemed the closest to the sky he could get.  
"This is the spot."

\---

He stayed until the pink glow of dawn was past, soaking the warmth into his pores, and then he made his way back down the hill to their tent, finding Tifa awake and working on setting up their small camp stove to cook some breakfast. She looked up as he approached and waved to him, a smile on her lips that seemed to reflect the same calm he felt inside.  


"Good Morning," she greeted when he was close enough, her voice lowered to avoid waking Denzel, who still slept. "Did you enjoy your morning run?"  


"I did," he agreed, turning to point towards the hill he'd come from, where the trail he'd blazed through the grass could be seen winding its way along like a silver ribbon. "I found a spot I think would be perfect for the house... the view is amazing."  


"Everything I've seen here so far is amazing," Tifa countered as she laid the first slice of bacon out in the fry-pan, sending the sizzle up into the morning breeze and adding the smell of cooking breakfast to the wondrous scents. "I can't remember the last time I slept so soundly... no car horns waking me up... fresh air..."  


Cloud nodded, glad they were seeing things the same way, only a few hours in and already this move was seeming like the best thing they had ever done.  


"So how do we start today?" she asked.  


"Well, we pick where we want to build... then I guess we make plans, draw up what we want the house to look like, then look at getting supplies. There's plenty of lumber and other building materials in Gongaga according to Reeve, so it shouldn't be too hard." Cloud busied himself with finding their travel plates and cutlery, getting them out and prepared for Tifa so that when she finished cooking the bacon she had something to transfer it onto.  


"We're not planning on hiring any help are we?" the brunette asked, flipping the rasher of bacon over and adding a second one to begin cooking.  


"No, I thought we could handle it ourselves... if we hit any snags we can't overcome then I guess we can ask for help but... I want to do it."  


She looked at him for a moment at that, her red eyes searching, but she must have approved of whatever she found, because she smiled softly to him, reaching up to brush a lock of her fringe back behind her ear to keep it out of her eyes while she leaned over the little stove.  
"This is our adventure, right?" she agreed. "Mistakes included."  


"Bacon included?"  


They both laughed softly as they looked towards the tent where Denzel now peeked out through the flap, his eyes sleepy but regarding the fry-pan keenly.  
"Bacon included," Tifa mused fondly as she served the first batch onto a plate and passed it to Cloud, who immediately handed it on to the younger man. Denzel didn't need to be offered twice, immediately taking the plate from his mentor and digging in to the hearty breakfast with relish.  


"Remember to chew," Cloud joked. "When we're all done eating, I'll show you the spot I found this morning."  


Denzel muttered a confirmation around his over-packed mouthful, and both of the others laughed softly, exchanging fond glances with one another as Tifa added more bacon to the pan. It had been some time since they had actually sat down to eat breakfast together, Cloud usually too busy with deliveries to make the time, but it was a quiet moment that Tifa was pretty sure she could get used to. especially if it meant she got to hear him laugh more often.

\---

The decision had been unanimous once Denzel and Tifa saw the view from the top of the hill - it was the spot. The brunette woman even teared up a little as she stared out across the valley below at the endless expanse of beautiful land.  
"It's like proof that everything we did was worth it, isn't it Cloud?" she'd asked.  


He hadn't answered her, but he'd smiled. Gaia would have had to become paradise for Cloud to decide the price had been fair, given just how much they'd lost along the way. He didn't catch the way Tifa looked at him after he remained silent, but she'd stood there staring at her feet for a good while afterward.  
The planning was a lot more difficult than he'd imagined it would be: the three of them walking in repetitive patterns across the hilltop, tracing out rooms in their minds eyes as they debated where things ought to be. A door here - no here, a patio maybe? There had to be a deck on the front to take advantage of the view of course, and lots of windows, it had to be as open as possible, they were done with dark and dinghy and the industrial aesthetic was staying in Edge.  
Tifa wanted a space to take up some sort of hobby, she wasn't sure what she wanted to do yet, but she insisted she needed an entire room for it and Cloud had no problem with promising her such a thing. Denzel just wanted a nice large room all to himself, which was easy to accommodate, and they planned an extra room for Marlene whenever she came to stay with them, and another for any guests that might stop by. Cloud was still a very private individual, but Tifa really liked to entertain, so he knew a guest room was not going to be a negotiable option. All he wanted besides his room was a good sized workshop to do any maintenance he needed on his delivery truck and his bike.

The first awkward moment came when it came time to discuss his and Tifa's bedrooms. At Seventh Heaven they'd shared the same bedroom because of space requirements, but never the same bed, but now when they came to deciding where their rooms would be, he noticed how Tifa hesitated, and he found himself wondering why it was such a complicated question. What was Tifa to him after all these years?  
A friend? Well of course, that went without saying... but friends would have planned separate bedrooms without a second thought, and perhaps even celebrated the idea of having their own spaces at last... perhaps even 'just friends' wouldn't have moved across the country together.  
A Lover? Well... no. They'd never really been together like that. Sometimes he noticed her watching him when she thought he wasn't looking, and seeing her smile each day was as important to him as seeing the sunrise every morning, but he'd never considered them ever being together like that. He'd never really had the time too.  
Tifa was important... that he knew. Important in a way he'd never been able to put into words, in a way he'd never really taken the time to fully examine, that he was afraid to fully examine.  
He'd been grateful when she'd declared where she wanted her room to be, making the decision for him, because it had saved him the embarrassment of making the call himself and maybe making the wrong decision.  
But then he'd felt a sinking disappointment all the same, and Tifa had avoided his gaze for a good hour afterward.

They were taking a break for lunch, enjoying the nut-butter sandwiches Denzel had made for them when Tifa pointed back down towards the road that lead onto their property.  
"There's someone coming."  


Cloud stood to look, squinting into the afternoon sun to get a better look at the beat up old truck that trundled down the road, leaving a small trail of dust behind it. From this distance he didn't recognise it, or anything about its occupants, only able to identify two people sitting in the cab, though the truck was not outfit for a long trip, so they had obviously come from nearby Gongaga.  


"Guess we ought to go down and say hello," Tifa suggested, brushing the crumbs off of her lap as she stood as well. "It might be someone coming to welcome us to the area? Or someone from the W.R.O maybe?"  


Cloud, always the more on edge of the two, pursed his lips but nodded, gesturing for the two of them to come with him as he started down the hill to where their camp remained down by their truck and the blinking beacon. He privately scolded himself for getting so comfortable that he didn't even bother to carry his sword with him up the hill, it was too early in their time here to get complacent.

\--

The truck beat them to the site, but the occupants of the vehicle seemed to decide to stay put until they reached them, only climbing out of their car once Cloud and the others were within speaking distance of them. It was an elderly couple that climbed out of the car, the woman carrying a small basket covered in a cloth that wafted with an unmistakably home-baked scent. She had long curly salt and pepper hair that she wore back in a ponytail, the length still reaching well down to her waist despite being tied up high on her head. Her face was kind and round but weathered with sun and age, the wrinkles on her face a weird mix of those developed both from smiling and from frowning. Her hands -like the rest of her - were quite small, with dirt crusted fingernails. The male was much taller and built with the telll-tale muscles of a farmer, though one who was beginning to feel the attrition of age. He was thinning out in the hair department, and mostly gray, but it seemed like it would have been dark before losing its colour as well.

It only took Tifa and Cloud a few moments to realise who had come to welcome them, the resemblance too strong to miss, and while Tifa was able to smile in greeting, her last meeting with these two so distant and unremarkable that it left very little for her to worry about, Cloud felt the bottom of his stomach drop out.

His last meeting with them had been years ago now, but it had not been a joyous occasion. He'd walked into their lives a complete stranger and brought them news far too long overdue, he'd broken their hearts in an unforgivable way; left them with the same ghost he walked with every day, a haunting they'd never asked for or deserved, one he'd hand delivered to too many parents that year. They were not the people he'd expected to see after moving out this way, in fact they were people he'd both expected and hoped never to have to face ever again, their eyes just too familiar in a way that made him ache in places he'd long hoped he'd gone completely numb.  


"Mrs Fair... Mr Fair..." he greeted softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to say this chapter is one of my favourites so far. Also Headcanon names for unnamed characters inbound, so hopefully you all wont mind my names.


	4. We Might Fall

The silence that followed Cloud's greeting felt like it went on for an age, though really it lasted no longer than a heartbeat before the older woman smiled warmly at him and shook her head.  
"Didn't I tell you to call me Libby?" she chided softly.

"Mrs Fair was my mother," the man agreed, looping an arm around his wife's waist and leaning in to press a kiss to her temple.

Cloud fumbled for how to reply, completely taken off guard by their appearance. His lips parted and froze with words that died upon them before he spoke them, his brows furrowing in confusion at his inability to form a complete sentence.

But Tifa soon came to his rescue.

"Come, we can't offer much right now, but I'll put the kettle on and we can have a cup of tea hmm?" the brunette offered kindly, gesturing the elderly couple over to their makeshift camp. "Cloud, why don't you pull a few more chairs out of the truck?"

Her request seemed to break whatever spell had fallen over the blond, because he nodded to her and hurried over to the truck, opening the back door to begin searching for more of their chairs, which were tucked pretty far back - much to his chagrin.

"You didn't come all this way just to welcome us did you?" Tifa mused with a soft laugh as she offered their existing chairs over to the couple and set the kettle down on their little propane stove to begin boiling. Denzel sat close by, watching curiously, but he had not yet come forward, unfamiliar with these people, and he'd become very cautious of strangers over the years. "You shouldn't have."

Libby Fair waved Tifa's fuss off, setting her basket of muffins down on the fold-out table, uncovering the baked gift to show what she had brought.  
"Nonsense, the moment we heard from the local W.R.O station that you were settling out here we had to come say hello," she chimed with a smile, watching as the morose blond returned with two more chairs, slightly battered wooden ones rather than the fold-able camping chairs they sat in now. "If we'd known you were coming we would have offered to help you get set up!" She shot a pointed look at Cloud, something chastising in the expression.

Cloud blushed softly, muttering an almost inaudible apology as he took up a seat, mako-blues fixed pointedly on the dirt between them.

"Gilder dear, do you still have that contact at the mill? Perhaps we can help out in some capacity, have your wood order sped up maybe?"

Tifa approached the older woman now to offer her a freshly poured cup of tea. "Oh you don't have to do that for us," she fussed, handing the next cup over to the gentleman, who murmured his thanks to her and gave her a warm smile. Her heart almost skipped a beat at the expression... it was distantly familiar in an unsettling way, like a ghost from an age long gone. "Cloud and I can handle it, right Cloud?" She looked over at the quiet man for his input.

His response was a grunt of affirmation, his eyes drifting sideways in the way they did when he was being avoidant, and it drew a sigh from the brunette as she returned to the kettle to pour him and herself a cup of tea as well.  
"Really, we wouldn't want to be any trouble," he finally added in contribution.

"It's no trouble, Cloud," Gilder mused as he swallowed a mouthful of tea, licking his lips contentedly. "It's the least we can do, really."

His heart thumped heavily in his chest, and the teacup Tifa handed him somehow felt cold in his hands despite the freshly boiled water, he clutched it close hoping it might impart some of its warmth upon him.

"So what exactly are you all the way out here for?" Libby asked, not seeming to notice the blond's discomfort. "You two never struck me as the 'working the land' sorts, last time Cloud wrote to us it sounded like things were going pretty well in Edge?"

Tifa glanced at Cloud, wondering if he was going to answer them, the move having mostly been his idea after all, but he seemed all too interested in taking a very large mouthful of his tea, so with a smile she proceeded herself.  
"Well, we decided it was time for a change, Edge was stifling us I think." She thumbed the rim of her teacup, smiling softly as she thought of that night the two of them had decided just to throw everything away and start anew. "We wanted to come somewhere fresh, and Cloud wants to raise Chocobos."

"Oh?" Gilder looked to Cloud with a raised salt-and-pepper eyebrow, his almost silver-grey eyes suddenly keenly interested. "Chocobos huh? That seems a big change, what drew you to that decision?"   
His attempts to pull the quiet man into their conversation were obvious, but Tifa was no less grateful for them. She knew this must have been a difficult encounter for Cloud, but she thought it an important one for him to face if they were truly to start a new life here.

"I... liked the idea of raising something that needs me..." Cloud replied, his voice so quiet Libby actually had to lean forward slightly to hear him properly. "Chocobos are gentle, useful... I like them." His cheeks flushed with colour as he tried to explain himself, the thoughts he expressed tender in ways Tifa hadn't heard him speak in quite some time. "And I thought we could maybe eventually look at racing them at the Saucer... make some money that way, entertain people."

Libby's eyes glittered a little as she regarded him in silence. It had been difficult for her and her husband to get a read on this young man, their first major encounter with him being such a depressing experience. She'd never forget that rainy day when a knock came at her door and the blue-eyed blond had stood there, drenched to the bone and exhausted from his long ride, begging to speak to them. He'd imparted the worst of news that day, and he'd done it stony eyed and unreadable, a wall of iron between them that she'd not mistaken for even a moment as callousness. All the shields in the world couldn't have hidden from her, even as she grieved her son, the depth of the pain this man carried with him. She'd seen him for the tender soul he was, and she'd begged him to write to them when he went to leave. He'd seemed resistant... but several months later the first letter arrived. They weren't common, but she kept them in the same shoebox with the letters she'd seldom received from another boy with mako-blue eyes she'd loved once so long ago.  
"That sounds perfect for you Cloud." Her voice was soft. "You deserve some peace."

"Do I though?"

Tifa blinked, a droplet falling from her face into her teacup, sending ripples on the surface. She blinked quickly, taken aback by the moisture that had accrued in her eyes without her even realising. She knew the thoughts that still rolled around in his head, though he rarely shared them with her, but there'd been the occasional moment of weakness on dark nights where he'd laid awake with her and laid bare his continuing torment, hoping that it might ease the burden even a little.   
The silence that followed the comment was tense, punctuated only with the rustling of the breeze through the trees and the distant chirp of crickets.

It was Gilder that broke the tension with his firm voice, his demeanor solid while everyone else seemed to be curling in on themselves.  
"Don't bring Zack here with you, Cloud." He used his sons name without hesitation or fear, not one to tiptoe around the matter that others were so hesitant to touch.   
That name was sacred to Cloud, like a solemn oath one never invoked lightly, so Tifa was not at all surprised when she saw the blond look up in alarm, his features furrowing as he looked ready to rebuff the older man, but Gilder simply raised a hand to stop him, commanding silence with only a gesture.  
"You want a fresh start, you can't keep dragging him around like a ball and chain," he continued. "Let him rest, and move forward with your future. Let it go."

Tifa waited tensely, watching as the nerves in Cloud's jaw twitched as he clenched and unclenched his teeth behind tightly pursed lips, half expecting him to spit with anger or otherwise admonish Gilder for his words. Afterall, the man was not the first to suggest that Cloud put the past behind him and focus on the future, it was a topic well known for causing arguments at gatherings of their friends.  
However, whether it was out of respect for Zack's father or something else, Cloud's response was much calmer than she'd anticipated, his hand tightened on his teacup, the ceramic straining under the force, though he did not break it.  
"I can't," he replied huskily. "I told him I'd remember, I didn't."

Libby sighed softly, setting her teacup down and reaching over to place a gentle hand atop the one that clenched the teacup so tightly, massaging the tense muscles with her thumb. "Like you could ever truly forget him, Cloud... he has that effect on people."  
The mother laughed softly, the mirth of someone thinking back on fond memories as they ran through their heart like a Play.  
"But Gilder is right... leave that guilt in Midgar, with the ruins and the dust. This is your place now, and he'd want it that way," she hiccuped, a weird merge of a sob and a laugh. "He hated it here anyway."

Gilder chuckled too, smiling with that same distant fondness.  
"It's true... he could never stand the quiet. He ran for the bustle of the city the moment he was old enough to."

Tifa gave a sad giggle, looking over at Cloud to gauge his reaction. He was staring at the floor intently still, but his expression was one of pensive thought rather than agony.  
"That sounds like him," she mused softly. She'd only met him the once, and hardly on good terms, but after hearing all of Cloud's stories it was hard not to feel as if she knew him personally.   
She admired how the Fairs' carried their pain with them like a treasured photograph, to be taken down and embraced occasionally, but then set back upon the mantlepiece, a memory of the past, not a hindrance on their future. Cloud wore his like a second skin, much mended since their last fight with Sephiroth when the rain had come and washed away the Stigma, but he still wrapped it around himself like it were part of his identity, like losing it would be flaying him alive.  
"We're going to work through it together, aren't we Cloud?" she asked, reaching out to touch his knee.

He looked at her sidelong and held her gaze for a moment before he looked away, but she saw the smallest dip of his head in acknowledgement. He still always looked away, which stabbed at her heart like a thousand tiny daggers, but at least he looked at her nowadays. She still hoped one day he might actually believe her that they would find the light at the end of the tunnel together and not just go through the motions.

She was competing with a ghost.  
\--

From there Tifa had steered the conversation back to topics of local suppliers and building advice, eventually agreeing to all of the assistance the Fairs offered, finding them far too stubborn to dissuade once they had set their mind to helping. She'd introduced them to Denzel once the boy had deigned to come over to greet them, and then, with their mobile numbers now stored in her phone she'd bid them farewell, thanking them for their company and the muffins.  
"Take care of him," Libby had whispered in her ear as they embraced, and though Tifa was certain the older woman had also whispered something to Cloud as she hugged the reluctant blond goodbye, she didn't manage to overhear what it was.  
She watched the truck disappear down the road, waving until they were out of sight, and only then did she let out the breath she was holding and turn back to the camp.  
Cloud was rinsing out all the mugs using their bottled water, his expression focused intently on his task, so much so that he didn't notice her approaching until she was right beside him again, her hand on his shoulder.  
"Are you OK?" she asked.

"I'm fine," he murmured, setting the mugs down on the table and drying his hands. "I just... didn't think they'd come out to see us is all."  
He shrugged, trying to play it all off as nothing, but the brunette wasn't going to have any of that today.

"We're going to build something beautiful here Cloud," she insisted. "And it's not going to be built from guilt or obligation... we did that in Edge and it didn't make us happy." She grabbed his hands, holding them tightly in her own. "This place is ours. Remember how you felt this morning?"

He blinked at her blandly for a moment, taking in the severity of her crimson eyes, the unerring focus of her gaze. He thought back to dawn on the hill, the thoughts that had come to him as he gazed at the distant horizon.   
"You're not worried that we'll fail?" he asked her. "That we're not meant to have peace?"

"No." Her reply was confident, no hesitation at all in her voice as she brushed a lock of her dark hair back behind her ear and bounced on her heels. "We've had struggles and losses sure, but have we ever really failed at anything we set ourselves to?"

Cloud shook his head slowly, but as he tilted his head and offered her one of his soft smiles, he watched all of the worry wash off of her features. He did like that he had that effect on her, even if he still wasn't really sure why. He wasn't sure about her logic, but he couldn't just tell her she was wrong either.  
"All right."

"No Strife Ranch," Denzel cut into their understanding silence abruptly.

"What?" they both responded in unison, turning to face him, not noticing the way they kept their hands intertwined.

"The name... it's a place of new beginnings and peace right? So... No Strife Ranch."

Tifa and Cloud exchanged glances at one another a silent conversation transpiring between the two before Cloud just chuckled and pinched the bridge of his nose, while Tifa looked back at their young charge and nodded her head.  
"We like it," she declared. "It works."

Denzel grinned broadly, pumping his fist in a triumphant gesture. "It's also a name pun, so I win."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Chapter buffer is running out because I am super stuck! But hopefully I can break my funk before I catch up.   
> This one was another feelsie one. Hope you didn't mind my head-canon names for Zack's parents. We'll be having a bit of a time jump soon.


End file.
